Crypto Exchange Novaexchange Hacked

The young crypto exchange Novaexchange — famous in narrow circles — was hacked the other day.

Events like this happen now and then in the new and fast-growing world of cryptocurrencies.

What happened

Some infamous crypto exchanges disappeared together with all the crypto and dollars users kept on them. Novaexchange acted differently: instead of vanishing, it posted a warning on its site — deposits are disabled, all trades made using the vulnerability have been canceled, withdraw everything you can. Work is underway, but the exchange will most likely be closed.

On the bitcointalk forum people were wary of Novaexchange from the start: they tested it with small amounts of BTC and LTC, and judging by the discussion, a 502 error popped up from time to time.

What made Novaexchange interesting

The exchange stood out because you could buy little-known altcoins for other altcoins — for example, Espero for Doge or for LTC. That made it possible to sell a coin faster, since its price ended up below the classic satoshi (0.00000001 BTC).

On other exchanges the minimum possible price in bitcoin is 1 satoshi. So Espero automatically costs more there — “one cent”, so to speak — and is less attractive to buy than if it cost 0.3 satoshi.

Saving the exchange

The most interesting part: some people want the exchange to work again and are even willing to chip in! On Scryptpool a Save Novaexchange thread was started, asking people to pool crypto to restore and improve “Nova”.

Here’s the fundraising progress so far. Of course, it’s pocket change compared with the money invested in The DAO. Haven’t heard of the DAO yet?

The takeaway

Don’t keep more on young, little-known exchanges than you’re willing to lose, and withdraw your funds to your own wallet.